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The code in question is called "FUN3D" and was first developed in the 1980s. It's still an important part of the agency's computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capability, and had its most recent release in September 2016.
The agency is now sponsoring a competition with the aim of getting it to go at least 10 times faster. If you can crank it up to ten thousand times faster – without any loss of accuracy – all the better.
Michael Hetle, program executive at NASA's Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program (TACP) explains that "some concepts are just so complex, it's difficult for even the fastest supercomputers to analyse these models in real time. Achieving a speed-up in this software by orders of magnitude hones the edge we need to advance our technology to the next level".
[Update: Original story title was taken directly from the referenced article; updated to remove condescension. --martyb]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @12:27PM (1 child)
I doubt NASA is honest, and believe they intentionally misreport space.
My hypothesis is that they cannot really go to space, and same applies for the other space agencies. That's why they keep talking with big words about space, to keep alive the impression that they are experts in something impossible to verify, until recently.
They promote "we humans evolved and we started exploring space 70 years ago" but does the place you live in look like a space-age place? 70 years, really?
Indicators of NASA trying to discharge their bill include the "bubbles in space" incident, forcing them in retreat. NASA sells this as "private initiative will take over" giving the stage to "people on Mars" and "drones mining asteroids", even though the actual real-life machinery and labs do not look as convincing as the accompanying artistic impressions of machinery and labs. This is the only constant element for the 70 years of humanity's golden space age.
"Going to space" is a gold rush that involves acquiring a huge strategic potential and unlimited resources, and swarms of space plumbers, engineers, colonists, navigators, craftsmen, healers and more in the most epic mobilization humanly performed.
Human pioneering is an unstoppable urge. If it was possible for a space rush to ever happen, it would have, because humans have been ripe for this for 70 years now. Instead, humans only get a handful of bad pictures. NASA never went to space, and now with the internet it is becoming impossible for them to back their claim that they "go to space" and this is becoming more and more obvious.
(Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Friday May 05 2017, @08:28PM
The Farce is strong with this one :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].